


Let It Be

by GalaxyAqua



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: F/F, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, POV Second Person, Pining, Possibly Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-21
Updated: 2016-02-21
Packaged: 2018-05-22 12:22:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6079155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GalaxyAqua/pseuds/GalaxyAqua
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Now that you think about it, you’ve always been Ibuki Mioda, cute girls’ enthusiast, but that had never rang more true than the second you fell in love with the cutest girl in the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let It Be

**Author's Note:**

> girls

There’s no real denying it; you fall for Mahiru Koizumi in a completely conventional way.

You’re looking at her one moment and she’s just another friend, just another human being on this massive planet that deals with your nonsense, just another pretty girl that happened to tolerate you. Then the next time you look at her she’s an angel on earth, the source of your rabbit heartbeat and the light of your life.

There’s no explaining the feeling, it just happens.

She’s cute, and funny, and smart, with eyes that glimmer when she smiles and it just _happens_.

Now that you think about it, you’ve always been Ibuki Mioda, cute girls’ enthusiast, but that had never rang more true than the second you fell in love with the cutest girl in the world.

Mahiru is sweet and kind and strong on top of it all – mothering the helpless, consoling the downtrodden, snapping the weak and cowardly into shape – and you admire that. You love that.

You love it when she flicks through photos with that wonderfully fond look on her delicate features.

You love it when she brushes her beautiful red hair out of her face, freckles clear against pale skin.

You love it when she makes the most of her voice, be it soft singing, humming, or even yelling at the stupid boys on the island to get their act together already.   

You love Mahiru Koizumi for all that she is, and everything is rainbows and sunshine, before it hits you like a goddamn freight train that there’s nothing you can do about it.

You’re the type of girl that can joke and laugh and screech and dance all you like, but when it comes to serious matters – and matters of the heart, no less – you’d rather be miles away, maybe on top of a mountain or two, sipping a cup of hot chocolate and avoiding everything like your life depends on it. It’s always been that way.

You don’t want to deal with it, so you run.

You run away from it like you’d run from a building ablaze, or the way you’d run from a giant mega ultra-sophisticated robot – if you’d ever come across one, that is.

You run from that pure feeling of loving Mahiru, before it turns ugly and twisted. Before it turns into that disgusted murmur of _you’re a_ _lesbian_ or that empty _I don’t see you like that, sorry;_ things that you, Ibuki, has had to hear before. Has had to hurt from before.

It’s dangerous territory, for a girl like you to fall for a girl like her, and you keep running.  

You remember distantly the first time blind optimism had wronged you.

Back in middle school, when everyone was still figuring themselves out, you had confessed to a girl once. It hadn’t ended well. You don’t like to think about that ever happening again.

You want to see Mahiru keep smiling, keep grinning around you, so you keep your selfish feelings to yourself. You ignore the lingering thoughts. The thoughts that tell you _if she knew what you were really like, she wouldn’t be able to stand the sight of you._

Like girls do, you hug and tease each other. You hold hands sometimes, and you try in vain to ignore the spinning-flipping sensation in your stomach. Try in vain to ignore the giddiness that comes with a touch – with a look at her sun-kissed skin. Try in vain to ignore your urge to reach out and pull her closer, pull her into intimacy, into something forbidden and wrong.

_Goddamn lesbians_ , you remember your bandmate saying once. _Can’t keep their bloody hands to themselves._

You despised the thought of being one of them back then, but you were young and lost and alone. You weren’t comfortable with who you were at all. You know better now. You’re that word, no matter what you want to change about it – you’re one of those _goddamn lesbians_ – you are and you can’t change the facts, so you don’t think with hate so much anymore. Just resignation. Acceptance.

You look at the object of your affections; survey Mahiru Koizumi with nothing else but unadulterated gayness (it’s the only way to describe it), and you come to just let it be.

You’ve got to stop running eventually. You’re just going to adapt. You have to. Adapting is the only way to survive.

So you let your friendship fluctuate – regretting only minutely that it was friendship that set the limit – and you tell Mahiru she’s beautiful and precious and gorgeous; while she bats you away with her bashful nature, scolding you for talking out of line. Exaggerating. Going overboard.

But you’re not. She’s all those things, and she doesn’t see it, and you wish that she did.

You guess that’s why it’s hard for people to love themselves, though. You wouldn’t want to fight a Koizumi that was in love with herself.

Or maybe you would. You’d do a lot for that girl, and you don’t even realize it until you’re already halfway across the island looking for her misplaced camera strap, or you’re filling a glass with water before she’s even stepped in to look for breakfast. You’re so in love, you’re a mess.

All the while, Mahiru is pristine and perfect, without a hair out of place. All the while, she’s still trampling you with suffocating friendship – not because it’s so platonic but because it’s so close to non-platonic that you sometimes want to tear your hair out.

In fact, it gets to the point where you’re both comfortable enough that sleepovers in that cramped cottage single-bed space are no problem anymore. At least, Mahiru tells you you’re being ridiculous if you object.

“Girls hug,” she said, with a roll of her eyes. “What’s the difference between hugging it out standing and hugging it out lying down?”

And you, miserable on the inside but ecstatic on the outside, had no option but to agree.

She had no idea what she was doing to you, did she?   

You talk at these sleepovers. Mundane things. Observations. Worries. Bad puns, courtesy of yourself, if you wanted to receive a pillow to the face and see Mahiru try in vain to hide her grin. It’s almost like you’ve been doing this your entire life.

Then, after hours fly by, you’re both so tired you can’t even move. Yet still, Mahiru, who means the world to you, has not figured it out. She will not figure it out.

“Good night, Ibuki,” she calls, a vibration of sound in the night air.

“Night night,” you reply.

There’s not much more after that, but the fall into steady breathing – the in and out of her breath like a lullaby to your ears, lulling you to join her in sleep. But you can’t, not yet. Not without considering this moment; this time that you have to yearn for something more. This time that you have to cherish what you have.

What Mahiru will never give to you, and what you will never ask of her.

And you bury your face into the small of her back, arms loose over her waist, whispering “I love you” as if she could hear. Whispering “I love you” as if she’d be fine with it all.


End file.
